In the beginning. If we can find it.

Text: Matthew 17:1-9

Let’s begin at the beginning. If only we could find the beginning.

We have a model of our lives. The big picture. Sort of a scheme of things. A common model is that our lives are lived in stages. Grammar school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, post-doc. Or: Dating, courtship, marriage. Or: That time when I lived in Boston, when I lived in California, when I lived in Cambodia. Or: Intern, novice, manager, partner. As if we were a reality TV show, divided into seasons and episodes. In this view of things, it seems inside of us as if life were a series of discreet steps, steps usually made intentionally, and sometimes marked by ritual. Graduation, wedding, promotion. Each step a new beginning.

But beginnings are seen only in retrospect. What constitutes an episode is clear only when events are passed. That time your eyes met on the dance floor is only significant after it has turned into a long-term relationship. Otherwise, it was only a glance that, like most others, led to nothing. You can see beginnings only when looking backward. In hindsight. You know that something new has already begun when you can no longer choose to do anything different. If you can get out of a relationship, no harm done, then there was no relationship begun. The relationship with someone begins when you discover that you can choose no other.

The story we just heard in the Gospel reading is commonly called the Transfiguration, because in it Jesus is changed, which is what transfiguration means. But the story could just as well have been called “Jesus meets the old prophets” or “God speaks to the disciples” or “Peter gets it wrong” or “Tempted by heavenly persons, Jesus decides instead to return to earth.” I think that what Matthew—whose version of the story of Jesus we are reading this year—what Matthew would like to call it is “The beginning of the end.”

Matthew, who wrote this Gospel long after Jesus had died and been risen, had the benefit of hindsight. Matthew knew, as the disciples could not have known at this moment, that Jesus was about to go to be executed in a horrible way. And he knew more than that. He also knew that a movement would spring up from the stories of Jesus' resurrection, and that people would gather in worship and tell those stories, and that some people would believe the stories and some would laugh at them.

Matthew takes this story of the Transfiguration and puts it in his rendering of the Gospel in a spot that makes it the perfect lead-in to the passion story, the crucifixion story. Which is why we read it just before Lent, which starts this Wednesday. Matthew likes to see beginnings when he looks back on the story of Jesus. A genealogy begins the birth story of Jesus. His baptism begins his ministry. The transfiguration begins the Passion.

The story proves things, according the Matthew. It proves that Jesus hangs around with the greatest prophets, it proves that Jesus is connected to the divine, it proves that Jesus is God’s son. It gives Jesus authority and authenticity. And furthermore, there are witnesses to the whole thing. James and John and Peter were there watching and listening. Matthew needs these witnesses, because he wants to argue his case about Jesus. It is good for us to be here, says Peter. Good for Matthew and his argument, at least.

But inside the story, so to speak, things are different. In the drama of the story, the disciples don’t know the future as Matthew does. They follow Jesus, a mysterious and charismatic man who says and does amazing things. Peter has just declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the one who comes to fix the world. Peter has also just heard that Jesus plans to go to his death, and has pleaded with Jesus not to. Even in this Transfiguration story, so full of formal symbols and purposes, we hear the friendship of the disciples, and Peter in particular, for Jesus and their love for him. They would follow him to the ends of the earth, and they do. Matthew wants the disciples to be nothing more than witnesses—they had roles to play, they could be anybody. But the story itself is so powerful that the disciples’ personalities and love come breaking through. Why did they think Jesus took them up on the mountain? Not to prove a point, I’m guessing. But to show them something cool and revealing. Or maybe just to have their company. It is good for us to be here, says Peter. Good for you, Jesus, that we are here with you.

We look back on the life of Jesus from a distance much further away than Matthew did. We know, as Matthew did, how the story ends. But we know more, which is that the story has become the foundation for a huge amount of theology, doctrine, tradition, and that a gigantic and mostly successful institution has grown up around it. There is no way that the disciples could have imagined Christianity.

We need to be careful not to look at Jesus with too much hindsight. We are followers of Jesus, and as such we have a lot in common with the first disciples. The church exists to preserve the story of Jesus, but it does not substitute for that story. How we know God develops over time. And like the disciples, we are not sure how it will all play out. We do not know whether events in our faith life are beginnings or middles or nothing at all, at least so far. Like the disciples, we could approach Jesus with less knowledge and with a simple willingness to go where Jesus invites us to.

The inscription around the chancel, the altar area here, reads “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” At the beginning and the end are the Greeks letters Alpha and Omicron. But they were supposed to be—or usually are—the letters Alpha (the first letter of the Greek alphabet) and Omega (which is the last letter) which is not shaped like an “O” but a little like a bowler hat. I have always thought that this was a mistake made by the builders of Faith. But maybe not. Mistake or no, it has the timeline right. Because for us in this time, the story is not over. We are in the middle of it. As far as we know, at the Omicron, not the Omega.

Seeing the life of the church, seeing your faith life, seeing your life, in episodes is not super helpful. Worrying about what things are beginnings and what things are just things makes us anxious about everything. Seeing things as episodes makes us impatient. Seeing things as episodes makes us live in the past or the future. Seeing things as episodes makes us miss the whole story.

I’m trying out a GPS in my car. I’m not sure I like it. It shows the street I’m on and the next street at which I’ll be expected to take some action. It makes something which is more or less continuous into a series of distinct stages, each one just beyond the horizon, demanding my attention. Left turn in half a mile onto Prospect Street. It makes the trip a series of inexorable and tedious events. It makes me anxious, not relieved. It makes me tired.

Life is not a series of small firm steps, one after the other. It is a discovery. The episodes appear after we have lived them. We can not figure it all out in advance. The path is not determined. We can do what the disciples did. Trust in God with an open heart. Do not be afraid. And see what happens.